27 Truths: Ava's story (The Truth About Love #1)
Page 23
“That’s great news, Ava.” Mom smiles as she walks toward me.
I now know where I get the ability to fake happiness. It’s from her.
“Isn’t it, Lucas?” she asks from over her shoulder.
He nods. “Yeah, it’s wonderful.”
Wonderful.
I remember vividly our first night together and when T’s mouth touched me everywhere and the way he made me feel.
“I’m not drunk anymore, T, and I’m not a child, and I want you to feel like I do.”
“How’s that?”
I told him, “Wonderful.”
Logan walks out of the elevator, his hair soaked with sweat. “Holy shit!”
“Go shower. I can smell you from here.” I smile at him then turn and look at Mom. “Take Chance a second?”
When she does, I walk quickly to the office, open the desk drawer, and pull out the journal.
I open it to page twenty-seven as I sit and grab a pen.
Page 27
Our Love is forever, Thomas Hardy. Yours, mine, and our children’s … forever.
I set the journal on the table next to my father’s phone charger, knowing he will get curious and read it. Then I get up and walk out.
When I pass the nursery, I look in. Hope’s crib has been moved to the window, and she is sleeping soundly with the sun on her back. I bend down and kiss her sweet, little head, and she stirs yet doesn’t wake up.
When I turn around to walk out, I am greeted with a father’s wish for his children: butterflies and a smiling sun.
I kiss my fingers and reach up, touching the cloud that Piper pointed to and told me he was sitting on. “Our love is forever.”
When I walk out, I see Dad warming up lunch, clearly something Tessa cooked for tonight.
“If you don’t want to eat, you don’t have to.”
I hold my hands out and take Chance from Mom. “I’m actually a little hungry,” I say, walking over next to him.
“He looks like me, doesn’t he?” I ask.
“He does.” Dad nods.
“Except this right here.” I point to his dimple. “That’s totally T. Even Liam said so.”
Dad nods again.
“They have matching birthmarks, too,” I tell him. “Right on their left cheek.”
Dad looks at Chance’s cheek and then at me.
I smile. “Butt cheek.”
He kisses my head and turns to put the casserole in the oven.
“And to think, your daddy didn’t think you two were his and made me do a paternity test,” I say in a sickly sweet tone.
“He, what?” Logan laughs.
“Yeah, men.” I look back at Chance. “He said he loved me, anyway, but needed to know. Simple blood test and that stress was gone.”
“Hell, I could have told him it was his. If I remember correctly, I saw him Christmas night bare-assed, running after you.”
“Shh,” I say. “Not in front of the kids.”
“Or your father,” Dad says in a more relaxed tone.
“Condom broke.” I shrug. “Good thing we aren’t Indian; that would have been a hell of a name to be stuck with.”
Logan laughs, getting the joke. “Broken Condom and Bare Ass. Yeah, that would have sucked.”
“It wouldn’t have happened.” I smile at Chance. “No way would I have done that to you. No way.”
EPILOGUE
* * *
Love is hope, love is chance, love is forever.
— MJ Fields
The police found the car that hit and killed T. It was registered to a ninety-year-old man who had dementia and an alibi. The police think that the car was stolen and that the old man never reported it because he didn’t notice it was gone. The plate was registered to a totally different vehicle. They didn’t close the case, but because of empty bottles and drug paraphernalia they found inside the car, they were sure they were right.
It didn’t help to know that no one was gunning for him. I never thought it to begin with. I had never seen Thomas Hardy unkind to anyone except Luke Lane. It didn’t help that they found a motive for why it happened. It didn’t help, because it didn’t bring him back.
That night, I dream of T, and when I wake up, I am confused.
You know that feeling when you walk into the bitter February cold and you take your first breath, and your breath is frozen? You feel the pain in your throat, your chest, and you think to yourself, This is what it feels like when you are dying.
Or that moment you walk into the desert air, and you feel like your lungs are so full that you can’t take a breath when you desperately need one? None comes, and you are dying.
I can’t breathe. Death is strangling me. It’s bitter cold, it’s sufficiently hot, and then there is this.
I look around. I am in the middle of the twins’ room. Dad put a bed together for me in here so that maybe they could sleep, and when they did, I would.
I get up and look in their cribs, terrified they are going to be taken away, too. It has become a secret and all-consuming thought.
My dad rushes in the room, and I smile. It’s fake, so fake, but I need them to leave. I need to grieve and love and grieve and love repeatedly.
I walk past him, needing to use the bathroom, and quickly hide behind the door.
I grab a towel and sob into it as I climb into the empty tub and sit.
The door opens, and Dad walks in, steps in the tub, sits down, and holds me.
“Talk to me, baby girl.”
Everything rushes out, and I can’t stop it.
“Daddy, I don’t want to live, and I don’t want to die, but this pain … This pain is unbearable. I can’t do this. I can’t do it anymore. I want to die. I want to fall asleep and never wake up. I want our babies in my arms on a cloud high above the world that is so full of death and pain and suffocation. I want to open my eyes and see him. I want to see him and for him to sit on the cloud, pain free and breathing, looking at me the way he did, and for his babies to see him and all the love he has for them! They are his, Daddy. They are, and Jade is wrong! You are wrong! I heard you and Mom. Do you know what that felt like?”
“I’m sorry, Ava. I’m sorry I wanted to ask you.”
“Do you know what it would be like if they were his? Do you? It would be horrible, horrible and awful, and I don’t want it. I don’t want him. I want T, Daddy. I want him here with me so badly so that I can breathe and love and not think about death and sadness.”
“Ava, what are you saying?”
“I’m telling you that T and I did a paternity test when I first found out. Dr. Kennedy administered it. T is my babies’ father, and—”
“Could Luke have been, Ava?” he asks, his voice shaking in anger.
“No!”
“Okay. Christ, Ava.” He holds me more tightly. “Okay, baby girl.”
“It’s not okay. Nothing is okay. There is life, and there is death, and there is nothing else.” I sob.
“You’re wrong, baby girl. You are wrong because you have me. You have us,” he says as Mom and Logan come into the bathroom. “You have yours and T’s babies. It hurts, and it’s hard, but in the midst of death, there is life.”
“It hurts,” I cry. “It hurts so badly.”
“You don’t want to die, Ava,” he says, and the fear in his voice shakes me.
I shake my head. “No. No, I just want to see him again. I didn’t get to say good-bye, Dad. I didn’t even tell him I loved him before I was carried out of that room.”
“He knew, and he wants you to live, Ava, just like Collin wants Tessa to. When you love someone, you don’t want them to be miserable; you want them to be happy. So if not for you, be happy for those babies and T, Ava. Allow yourself to be happy.”
***
After that outburst, it takes a week before I can convince them it was due to a dream and that I’m fine.
Dad agreed to go home, but at a moment’s notice, he would be back. He made me promise I would go to
the Cape for Labor Day.
Mom was easier to convince. She hired a nanny to come in for five hours a day to allow me to rest and help with laundry.
When everyone was gone, I sent Casey home for the night with a promise I would call if I needed anyone. Otherwise, I would see her at eight so we could get Chance to the doctor.
That night, I close my eyes and remember page twenty-seven and all the pages before that. In our journal is all the truth that matters. He left me that without even knowing he would, and on page twenty-seven, I wrote, Our love is forever, Thomas Hardy. Yours, mine, and our children’s... forever. My promise to him.
“You are the truth about love,” I whisper to Hope and Chance as they sleep. “There is no greater love than that.”
THE TRUTH ABOUT LOVE
* * *
Just like life, true love doesn’t always come to us in the way we anticipate, dream, or expect.
Just like life, losing something we cherish doesn’t mean that all is lost.
Just like Ava’s father told her, life doesn’t end in death. I believe that love in its truest and most breathtakingly beautiful form comes from within and grows when mirrored by those who are able to give it back.
Just like millions of people in this big, beautiful, and somewhat broken world, love lives in hope.
The greatest love in my life came to this world much earlier than expected, tiny and beautiful. Her eyes are blue and full of love, dreams, and kindness.
What I hope I can show her is the beauty in herself, in this world, and in people who are different. And, in differences, there is beauty.
Keep dreaming, hoping, and loving,
XOXO
MJ
WANT MORE?
* * *
Expect another book in the Truth About Love series in October 2016.
(Title to be announced.)
While you wait, follow MJ and Lucas Links on Facebook to get periodic updates on the Ross, Links, Hines, Abrahams families.
Feel free to post or message your truth about love.
Want to read more about these characters?
LRAH Legacy Series (These families’ stories are intertwined starting with The Love series, they move to the Wrapped Series, the Burning Souls series, and end in Love You Anyways. Many more series will spin off from these characters already written and each will be a standalone series but for those of us who love a story to continue I recommend reading in this order.
The Love Series
(Must Be Read In This Order)
Blue Love (free everywhere)
New Love
Sad Love
True Love
The Wrapped Series
Wrapped In Silk
Wrapped In Armor
Wrapped In Always and Forever
Burning Souls Series
Stained
Forged
Merged
LRAH Legacy Additions
Love You Anyway
Love Notes
CONTACT MJ
* * *
USA Today bestselling author MJ Fields love of writing was in full swing by age eight. Together with her cousins, she wrote a newsletter and sold it for ten cents to family members.
She self-published her first contemporary, new adult romance in January 2013. Today she has completed seven self-published series, The Love series, The Wrapped series, The Burning Souls series, The Men of Steel series, Ties of Steel series, The Rockers of Steel series and The Norfolk series.
MJ is a hybrid author and publishes an indie book almost every month and has over 40 self-published titles. She is also signed with a traditional publisher, Loveswept, Penguin Random House, for her co- written series The Caldwell Brothers.
MJ was a former small business owner, who closed shop so she could write full time.
MJ lives in central New York, surrounded by family and friends. Her house is full of pets, friends, and noise ninety percent of the time, and she would have it no other way.
mjfieldsbooks.com
facebook.com/MJFieldsBooks
@mjfieldsbooks
Instagram.com/mjfieldsbooks
mjfieldsbooks.tumblr.com
Pinterest.com/mjfieldsbooks
SIGN UP FOR MJ’S MONTHLY NEWSLETTER WITH GIVEAWAYS